Superior Women (5 page)

But in the meantime she more brightly thinks there is going to the Cape, and sailing. Meeting his family. “Clamming.”

And Lavinia, her new friend.

“Guess what? I’m not frustrated anymore!” This is the first thing that Lavinia says, with a small happy laugh, on the first day of the between-terms vacation. September 1943. She and Megan are sitting on the broad back steps of Bertram Hall, facing the deserted quad where now, in this warm slow start of fall, the grass is gradually drying out, slowly yellowing.

•     •     •

That September is also the scene of bloody battles: the invasion of Italy and Italy’s surrender; ferocious fights in Pacific jungles, Asian seas. But although these events are viewed almost daily in newsreels at the University Theater, on Harvard Square, the war is still essentially unreal. Even the fact of uniforms everywhere is suggestive less of blood and death than simply of high drama. The war is like background music in a movie; it serves to heighten and intensify private experience—especially for girls like Lavinia and Megan, or Cathy and Peg, whose only concentration is on their own personal lives.

“I went out with this ROTC,” Lavinia continues. “Gordon Shaughnessey, isn’t that the most divine name? and is he handsome! We went dancing at the Fox and Hounds, with a whole bunch of people, and then some drinks at the Napoleon Club—when I think of what that evening must have cost! Aren’t you glad you’re not a boy? I am! And Gordon’s not rich, I can tell. Anyway, after that we all ended up in separate cars, Gordon and I in this funny Caddy, he said it was his roommate’s, ‘Potter’ something, now there’s a name,
Potter.
Anyway, we ended up parked by the Charles, somewhere, and he must have been as hard up as I was, we were really all over each other, and is he fun to kiss! I think I’m in love!” Lavinia laughs again, in her light cool way; she can take or leave being in love.

Megan has reacted to this recital with an uncomfortable mixture of excitement and envy. Her imagination takes in and vividly dramatizes all the scenes that Lavinia has named: the group all dancing in an expensive nightclub—all beautiful girls like Lavinia (and Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, maybe), ROTC boys in their dark officers’ uniforms. Dim lights, small tables, a band. And then drinks at the Napoleon Club, probably smaller and darker. More “intimate.”

Parked by the Charles, “all over each other.” Well, Megan can easily imagine herself in that scene, in “Potter’s” old Caddy. Herself all over someone who is fun to kiss. (Is George fun to kiss? She had not thought of it in just that way.) And Lavinia did all
that on a first date? And—what about Gordon Shaughnessey? Was he shocked, will he ever call her again? And is Lavinia worried that he won’t, as Cathy was, last summer, when she went out and necked with her ROTC boy, who never did call back?

Megan is certain, somehow, that Lavinia is not worried. Either way will be all right with her, whether she sees this boy again or not. And Megan is also certain that Gordon Shaughnessey will call.

Megan herself is both worried and unhappy when she thinks of George, which is almost all the time. Although he knows that she is there, between terms, and although he talked in such a definite way about sailing, the Cape, his parents—he has been absolutely silent, unheard-from, absent from her life. And as always, during such lapses of time, Megan imagines that she will never see him again, never, gone, no more of George. And this time her fears seem very solidly, fatally grounded, else why, having talked about such clear plans, would he then not call? Unless he really meant not to see her again.

This is only the first day of vacation, of course, but if he meant for her to come to the Cape for a weekend, surely he would already have called her. George is not casual; he is in his way rather formal. And surely his parents would be the sort who plan ahead, inviting guests, discussing train schedules.

But “Oh God!” Lavinia suddenly cries out, interrupting Megan’s unhappy train of thought. “Oh God,” cries Lavinia again, “he’s coming over in half an hour, and I’ve got to change. Why don’t you come up and talk to me while I get dressed?”

Although that sentence was phrased as an invitation, it was actually an imperative; Lavinia has risen without looking around for an answer. Of course Megan would follow her over to Barnard, and Megan did.

Lavinia’s room is in the sort of total mess and confusion that Megan has begun to see as characteristic: clothes everywhere, cashmere sweaters carelessly wadded up or strewn about, silk slips, tiny white lace bras, and the sheerest, palest (that year, infinitely valuable) nylon stockings, scattered about, hung over chairs.

“Well, obviously I don’t have time for a bath,” says Lavinia, with her tiny concentrated frown. “I’ll just go and wash the essentials.” And she gives Megan her knowing, complicitous laugh.

Not at all sure what is meant, Megan ponders: essentials? Her face and neck and under her arms, of course, but does she also mean
there
?

While Lavinia is in the bathroom, which is some ways down the hall, Megan looks around (of course she does, given her fascinated curiosity about Lavinia), although (of course) she feels guilty, furtive. But the room does not yield up much beyond expensiveness and confusion. A pair of earrings that, if real, are diamonds and rubies, lie across an open book, and the book turns out to be Hobbes, instead of some romantic poetry, as it should be, for those earrings.

But, having got up to inspect the earrings and to identify the book, Megan next sees a drift of envelopes scattered across the desk, where the book was lying. Several are addressed in the same hand, a strong, passionate forward slant, very masculine but curiously ornate, and the envelopes themselves are most ornate, a heavy vellum. Others with airmail stamps are from some naval officer, overseas. Several typed envelopes have the return address of a law firm in Washington; her father? Megan looks more closely at the first and largest, most interesting group: that violent hand. She sees that the man’s last name is Rodman, clearly, and the first is—Harry? Harvey?

At just that moment, perhaps fortunately, there is a loud distracting noise from the quad below; the WAVES who live in Briggs Hall are marching, singing something Jolly Sixpence, as usual. Thus Megan is at the window, looking down, when Lavinia comes back, hurrying, into the room. Megan is not poking around Lavinia’s desk, reading names from envelopes.

“Well,” laughs Lavinia, smelling of flowers, “if I can just come up with some decent underwear I’ll be okay. He’ll fall more and more in love with me—”

Decent underwear? More in love? Breathlessly, Megan considers implications.

In any case, what Lavinia seems to have meant by decent turns
out to be a tiny white lace bra, a white satin garter belt and some white silk panties, the kind that button at the side, like shorts. Not at all like the panty girdles or plain white briefs, so protectively tight at the legs, that Megan and most girls wear.

“Do you think he’ll hate me because my panties haven’t been ironed?” asks Lavinia, with her laugh.

Megan tries to answer with her own laugh, or with any sound at all, but fails. She is thunderstruck: does Lavinia mean that she has let him touch—that she will again—?

“Oh, I’m afraid I’ve shocked you, Megan baby. I forget how pure you are.”

Megan rather unsuccessfully gets out, “Oh, I’m not all that pure,” and again, she tries to laugh.

“Oh, really, that’s good. We must talk about it sometime.” They exchange a long look, and then Lavinia, seeming to pull herself together, says that she thinks she had better go on downstairs. “I don’t think there’s anyone on bells.”

By now Lavinia is fully dressed, gray flannel skirt, pale pink sweater, cashmere. (Megan for some time has puzzled over the fact that Lavinia’s sweaters and skirts look much better on her than anyone else’s do, and now she arrives at a simple explanation, which is that they all fit her, perfectly. Whereas, that year, almost everyone else has carefully cultivated the sloppy look of oversized clothes. Including overweight, bosomy, overshy Megan.)

Lavinia picks up her dark red coat from its heap at the foot of her bed, together the two girls leave the room; they start down the hall, toward the stairs. Just at the top landing Lavinia pauses though. She touches Megan’s arm for an instant, holding her back, and with one of her most intent looks, Lavinia says, “Oh, I forgot, there’s something I really need you to do for me. A favor.” She looks down the stairs, and then turns back to Megan as she says, mysteriously, “I need you to come to the Ritz for lunch with me next Thursday. There’ll be someone else along. A person I know. I can’t explain right now, but you will? Okay?”

Before Megan can say anything at all they start down the stairs, but even if Megan had meant to refuse, what could she have said? Although she is already thinking, God, the Ritz, whatever can I
wear? And if the other person is a girl we’ll split the check three ways, probably, and it could cost—anything!

From the foot of the stairs, from the front desk Megan and Lavinia can see into the small, rather shabby visitors’ room; they can both see a tall, dark, thin young man, in a neat ROTC uniform. He is sitting there alone, staring at his hands.

Megan has begun to say to Lavinia, “Well, so long, I’ll see you,” when Lavinia takes her arm and pulls her into that tiny room. The boy stands up politely, but his face has fallen, as he visibly (to Megan) thinks, Oh God, she’s bringing a friend along. A fat friend.

Lavinia is saying, “This is Megan. Megan, I want you to meet Gordon Shaughnessey.”

“Nice to meet,” Megan and Gordon Shaughnessey mutter simultaneously, and then, more coherently, Megan says, “Well bye. See you later.”

Lavinia looks at Megan with an expression which would seem to say, Help me, I’m scared. Or, on anyone else that is what that quick look would mean. But Lavinia is never frightened, is she?

Of course not. In a firm way, with her knowing smile, Lavinia says, “Goodbye, little Megan. See you later.” She then turns on Gordon her look of absolute, concentrated attention; it is also a very sexy look, Megan observes. And to Gordon, Lavinia says, very softly, “Hello.”

Megan leaves. Going down the front steps of Barnard she feels as though she is stumbling, falling—but she is not, not really.

If she hangs around the dorm all day and night, waiting for George to call, two things will surely result, Megan knows: one, George will not, will most certainly not call; and, two, she will go out of her mind, go nuts.

Therefore, she forces herself out on long walks; she walks everywhere, all the environs of Harvard Square. She forces herself to think about houses, architecture. She regards the hard spare elegance of the big houses out on Brattle Street, contrasting them to the softly styled Spanish stucco houses in Palo Alto, or on the Stanford campus. Even the Protestant churches back in California
have a Spanish mission look, she remembers, her stoic gaze fixed on the severe white lines of Christ Church, near Harvard Square.

Certainly the New England air is different, too, especially now in mid-September, with the perceptible approach of fall. Even sorely troubled as she is (for surely George had promised, promised her sailing and the Cape, and meeting his parents), even so sad and distracted as she is, Megan catches the lively cool vibrations in that deep blue New England air, before the faintest yellowing of leaves, the autumnal desertions of birds.

Every day she walks for hours and hours, and back at home in the dorm she does reading for a course to be given that fall, called Criticism of Poetry. They will study Donne and Yeats, Dryden, Pope and Keats. She has read at least some of all those poets but Donne, of whom she has barely heard before.

When she is not walking, or seriously reading, she thinks painfully, and sometimes bitterly, of George.

Also, she worries about the lunch at the Ritz with Lavinia, which has been several times postponed. Selfishly, she wishes that Lavinia were not so totally occupied with her new love affair, with Gordon Shaughnessey. She and Lavinia have hardly had a conversation, much less “really talked.”

She is much lonelier than she can afford to admit to herself.

“—and he’s terribly old, he must be thirty-something,” Lavinia is saying.

They are not at the Ritz at lunch, but at a delicatessen up on Mass. Avenue, at night. Gordon has guard duty, and thus for the first time since he and Lavinia met, Lavinia is free to spend some time with Megan.

Lavinia is in the midst of explaining what she has not had time to say before, that the Ritz lunch is not, after all, to take place: the man who was coming up from Washington, and from whom, it turns out, Lavinia wanted some sort of protection, will not, after all, arrive. Lavinia has brought along a two-page telegram from him. Megan has never seen such a telegram before, and when Lavinia remarked, “You see, he’s really crazy,” she had to agree,
in a way. But of course she responds to extravagant gestures, having experienced rather few, only read of them. This is how love should be, Megan thinks.

And now, over roast beef sandwiches and coffee frappes, Lavinia is telling the story of that love affair, hers with Harvey, whom Megan has instantly identified as he of the thick vellum envelopes, the impassioned forward slant to his hand.

“I met him at some friends’ house in Georgetown,” Lavinia is saying, “and since he was so old I didn’t pay much attention. Anyway, we were leaving for the country, Fredericksburg, the next day. This was last summer. But he must have got our address in Fredericksburg from someone because—well, you would not believe the flowers. Every day, at least fifteen dollars’ worth of flowers. So when he called and asked me to meet him for dinner at the Shoreham, I sort of felt I ought to.”

As always, when Lavinia tells a story, Megan is there: she is in the Shoreham’s dining room, where she has never been. And she can see Lavinia, in some pale summer dress, see candles and roses and glasses of wine, on a white linen table. With an indistinct “older man,” who is terrifically in love with her (Laurence Olivier?), who fell in love at first sight, who would be permanently in love.